MEDIA RELEASE

Roberta Bishop of Hawaii Arts Alliance presents Parker School fine arts director Maren Oom with the Arts Excellence Award on stage at the Parker School Theatre.

On Thursday, November 16, Parker Middle School received a 2011 Arts Excellence Award from the Hawaii Arts Alliance.

Ex-officio Hawaii Arts Alliance board member Roberta Bishop presented the award certificate and a $1000 check to Parker School fine arts director Maren Oom on stage at the historic Parker School Theatre in front of an audience of proud Parker middle schoolers.

“This is the third time Parker has received this award in the last 4 years from the Hawaii Arts Alliance, a state organization and member of the Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education network,” said Oom.

According to the Hawai’i Arts Alliance, whose mission is to advocate for the arts in education, “This award is given to schools and their community of students, administrators, teachers, and parents because exemplary work in the arts and in arts-integrated curriculum has been proven at the middle school level.”

Parker 8th grader Kevin Grace said, “It’s really cool we got money because some art stuff is sort of expensive, and the middle school art program is really cool because it gets you going in art early so you don’t have to start fresh in high school. It’s required (in high school), so you have experience going in.”

Parker School is grateful to the Hawaii Arts Alliance for this generous gift and acknowledgment of its fine arts program.

For more information, please visit www.parkerschool.net